Sick at a Party and Gently Tinged with Red
by Semi-Retired Writer
Summary: Sickdays 2.0 Days 2 and 5. SMHC. When Peter is invited to a party to rebuild the Avengers' relationships post-Accords, of course he's excited about the opportunity. His immune system has other ideas.
1. Chapter 1

**Sick at a Party**

When he woke up to a subtle and arguably ignorable fluttering in his stomach, Peter thought it had been simple excitement. Now that he was standing in Tony's ballroom unable to stop shivering while everyone else seemed comfortable—physically, at least—and nauseous at the smell of the rich appetizers on the far side of the massive room, he wasn't so sure about that conclusion.

Captain America had already made direct eye contact once tonight, so it was too late to go home without leaving a bad impression on the slowly reforming Avengers. They weren't a team again _per se_ —in fact, Peter still hadn't earned a serious invitation to the team anyway—but they were all clearly trying to make things work again. Tony had explained privately earlier that this "party" was intended as a sort of neutral ground to help rebuild the many relationships that had gone sour before the Accords had gone through several major revisions in place today.

Peter had made the mistake of extremely tangentially bringing up the airport battle during their last attempt at mediation—"So, how _does_ the growing giant thing work?"—and both sides had ended up flinging increasingly vicious insults until they'd had to end the meeting before any of the most important matters had even been broached in discussion. Because of that mishap, they were all under strict instruction to stick to civilian topics of conversation tonight. This was about rebuilding friendly rapport. Peter was of the opinion that Tony didn't have to jump straight to being _that_ strict with the fractured team, but then again, he could still remember the venom in Steve's voice at the end of the last meeting with perfect clarity. So, maybe it was for the best that they weren't discussing work. It was his best ever chance to hear more about the Avenger's personal lives anyway, which was just _awesome_.

Or it would be awesome if he felt up to it. Instead, he was regretting coming tonight, or even getting out of his bed today at all. He spent enough time with Tony and felt secure in their relationship enough that he would've been comfortable calling off and canceling at the last minute if it had just been the two of them, but no, he just _had_ to come down with something the one night he'd promised to spend with the entire collection of his childhood heroes. This sucked.

The atmosphere shifted until the room seemed impossibly warm. He probably needed a fever reducer, but a cup of water from next to the appetizer table seemed more doable. His enhanced sense of smell was still bothering him more than he'd like it to, so he took a deep breath and gave his best attempt at not breathing in while he darted to the table and back, returning to the far corner with his prize before he took his next desperate breath. He was a little dizzy after holding his breath for so long but otherwise unharmed by his little trip.

Peter took small sips from his cup while he leaned against the wall at a distance from the others and watched the room. The atmosphere was still awkward and a little forced, but people from opposite sides _were_ talking, so things could be worse. No one made a move to talk to him, but that was perfectly okay with him. None of the rogues knew him really, and he wondered how many even recognized him without the mask. He might've tried striking up a few conversations himself—who's he kidding? Of course he would have—if he wasn't feeling so rough, but anything he would've said under better conditions tonight could wait for another time. As a huge point in everyone's favor, he hadn't heard a single raised voice so far.

He zoned out at some point while he worked his way through the contents of the cup. He snapped back to attention when his vision started wavering. Before he had time to react, everything around him was crowded out by the blackness blooming from a few spots until it encompassed all of his vision.

His legs swam into view and wow, he was on the floor. His stomach felt a lot worse than he remembered too. Okay. Okay, that was new. Maybe it wasn't the best idea to keep pretending nothing was wrong to avoid offending anyone. He took a second to take stock of where his arms were then moved his hands to prepare to push himself back to his standing position so he could track someone down before he got worse. He didn't get that far in his plan, though.

"On the list of people I'd expect to drink underage, you're at the very bottom, especially around people who are effectively your coworkers. What the hell, kid?"

"…What?" Peter was still reeling a little from the sudden change in altitude, and following the conversation with… Tony? It was an impossible feat right now. He hadn't taken in a word the man had said, but he didn't know if he could get out enough words to ask him to repeat himself. Tony waved an arm at him, still sprawled on the floor.

"This," he elaborated. "Sober people don't just hurl themselves into the floor for no reason. I hope you know I'm disappointed in this behavior. We _will_ be discussing this when you're in your right mind again."

He tilted his face toward the ceiling.

"FRIDAY? Set an audio alert to execute any time Peter touches anything alcoholic while he's underage." He waited for verbal confirmation from the AI and faced Peter again. "Now that that's taken care of, let's go do what we can to sober you up."

Peter let whatever was being said wash over him largely unheard and took the hand suddenly thrust in front of his face so Tony could pull most of his weight until he was standing upright, only wavering a little in place.

"You're lucky I understand the appeal, so I'm not telling May this time," Tony droned on. Peter still wasn't catching much, but the man seemed like he was on a roll with whatever this conversation was. Good for him, Peter thought somewhat distantly. The guy didn't get passionate about conversations very often. He curled an arm around his aching stomach and hoped Tony wouldn't be too upset when he didn't remember what he was so riled up about later.

Tony had a heavy arm wrapped around his shoulder and was making him walk somewhere away from the rest of the so-called party—though he had no clue where they were going exactly—which would've been fine any other time, but he could still barely tell up from down and his stomach was violently protesting every step. He was sluggishly weighing the pros and cons of extracting himself from the hold when Tony's speech cut off and he found himself facing a trash can the next time his vision was focused enough to let him really see his surroundings. He wasn't sure what prompted it, but he also wasn't in a position to complain as his nausea finally won over his control and he jolted forward to retch once and vomit embarrassingly loudly in the otherwise silent… hallway? Room? It was hard to tell when his brainpower was largely diverted to convincing the rest of his lunch to stay where it belonged.

When he finally regained some semblance of control over his own body and he could see straight for the first time since he'd fallen, Tony was staring worriedly at him.

" _How_ did you drink this much without me noticing while I was in the same damn room?"

"What?" Without his vision and his stomach pulling his attention away, Peter could follow the conversation more easily. He hoped Tony hadn't been on the same topic the whole time, with him just standing there and taking it. "No. No! I don't drink, Mr. Stark. I'm _sixteen_!"

The pointed stare didn't betray anything resembling belief, so Peter called for reinforcements.

"FRIDAY, what's my BAC?" he asked. There was a beat of silence before she reported the measurement.

"Zero."

Tony looked surprised, and Peter wondered if he should be offended.

"I think I'm sick," he volunteered, though there was really no "think" about it at this point. Tony leaned back and squinted at him, apparently taking in his appearance. FRIDAY chimed in with her own support.

"Moderately elevated temperature, vomiting, dizziness, and fatigue observed in subject. Initial diagnosis: early stages of the flu."

"That explains a lot. Guess we should get you some medicine and a bed for the night, huh kid?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Gently Tinged with Red**

Today's memories were muddy, but from what remained, he could tell things weren't the greatest earlier. After nearly collapsing into bed and gratefully dry-swallowing whatever pills had materialized in his hands earlier, Peter had closed his eyes and let his attention drift away from his fading discomfort until he'd drifted off at some point. That had been fine.

This was not. There was no way to tell how long he'd been asleep beyond the fact that it was still dark outside the wall-to-wall windows on the far edge of the room—though that could mean anything, considering it was early evening when he'd first walked into the ballroom—but the time mattered less than the fact that his body had burned through all of the medicine while he was out, leaving him feeling worse than ever. He'd _just_ woken up, but the mass of pillows and blankets were already calling him again. He didn't think he would've been able to resist the urge to simply sink back into place and close his eyes, but that was a pipe dream since his every heartbeat was accompanied by a painful twinge in front of each temple. It wasn't the _worst_ headache he'd had in his life, but it was certainly up there on the list, and there was no way he was going to fall asleep before it let up. More annoying than the headache was the series of aches that had sprung up throughout his entire body while he was out. As a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, he got plenty of vigorous workouts in each week along with the occasional beating, and he _never_ ached like this. Places that had no business feeling anything radiated with pain, and no amount of holding still diminished the feeling. Even his throat ached and itched. He caught himself getting irritated with his own body before he mentally shook it off, knowing he probably couldn't have done anything to avoid this. He could feel the beginnings of a fever making the room much colder than Tony would ever keep it. A faint glimmer of the nausea from earlier was there, and that wasn't making the whole going-back-to-sleep thing likely either.

He was torn. On the one hand, yes, he should try to sleep it off. It wasn't like painkillers lasted long anyway. On the other, he was pretty sure he _couldn't_ fall asleep long enough to sleep it off without something to take the edge off first. Then, there was the matter of how exactly to obtain said painkillers. He could ask Tony via FRIDAY, and the idea didn't even bother him as much as it did during that stage when his awkward hero worship was blatant to anyone around him and not tempered by time. It was only the fear that it might be too late at night and he could wake the man that tugged at his resolve until he couldn't go through with it. He'd just have to take care of himself, which was fine. Totally. He was sixteen—almost seventeen!—old enough to treat a stupid fever without an adult babying him through it. If he could routinely take on would-be burglars and muggers, he could pull his uncooperative body out of bed long enough to find something to get him back to sleep. Suddenly realizing he was rambling in his own thoughts, he cut the train of thought off and pushed himself up on both forearms, intending to get to work sooner rather than later.

The upright position brought on a cough he hadn't noticed prickling and building at the back of his throat while he'd been deliberating in bed. He half-coughed, half-gasped at first, taken by surprise, but it didn't take long to regain his composure and ride the rest of the fit out until he could breathe in without setting off another cough. It wasn't something he normally needed or really noticed, but tonight he was thankful that the bedrooms in the compound were semi-soundproofed. Tony once made a crude joke about "fraternization" making the soundproofing a necessity at the tower before the team broke up, but Peter was pretty sure it wasn't a serious suggestion. He shook himself when he realized that really wasn't relevant to his current situation. It was just so easy to slip into these tangents instead of remaining firmly in reality.

He swayed on his feet but ultimately managed to stay upright when he untangled the somewhat sweat-damp sheets—ew, maybe he could deal with those too—and clambered out of bed, though he did resort to clinging to his bedroom wall for balance. Halfway across the room, he came to the now non sequitur that he _did_ have a way to check the time and addressed FRIDAY, only to find that it was half past two.

"Would you like me to send Boss to you?" the AI asked after answering. He struggled through another short round of coughing before he could answer.

"No thanks, FRIDAY. I've got it." Even he wasn't willing to make the bold claim that he was _fine_ at the moment, but he wasn't so bad off that he needed to bother Tony for something as simple as tracking down some Advil. Knowing him, the poor guy probably hadn't even been asleep for an hour yet. The stress of having all of the Avengers under one roof while the bad blood still ran hot couldn't be helping with his usual insomnia.

Well, then. First thing's first. The ensuite bathroom was an obvious place to store painkillers. If he was lucky, he could make that short journey and not even have to leave his room before throwing himself back into the still-warm sheets and waking at a more reasonable hour.

It was a bust. Flipping the lights on made him flinch when it caused his headache to intensify for the several seconds before he was used to the new lighting. He noticed his reflection while he started his search under the sink and behind each of the mirrors, more flushed with fever than he'd ever seen himself, but he elected to ignore the unwanted childish look it lent him in favor of discovering that there was nothing in the room to soothe his aches or chase off his fever. So much for a quick resolution. With a sudden shiver that aggravated his sore limbs, he brought his attention back to the room's temperature. It wasn't comfortable. His otherwise sluggish mind took almost no time to remind him of his suit's heater. In all his life, he'd never had such a good idea.

He couldn't help a satisfied smile as he pulled on the mask long enough to greet Karen and ask her to run the heating at full capacity. Her warnings went ignored long enough for the AI to follow the command. He hadn't bothered to take off his pajamas first, so the suit was noticeably lumpier and probably not flattering, but he couldn't bring himself to care about aesthetics when the heat was coaxing the ache out of his limbs, much to his relief. Slipping the mask back off and tossing it aside, he renewed his grip on the wall—though he spared a moment to mentally declare his own sticky fingers the real MVP of the night for making moving so much easier—and started his journey into the dark hallway and toward… actually, where?

It had seemed so simple when he'd plotted in bed, but the reality came with unforeseen obstacles. The first: where would he find medicine? Someone… someone had brought him medicine earlier, but he'd been so tired and admittedly out of it that he had no idea where it came from. It struck him as odd that he couldn't remember who had brought it either. It seemed like a weird thing to forget, but he let it slip. There were more important matters before he worried about fever-scrambled memories trickling out of his consciousness. He reconsidered his search. "Huge" didn't do the compound justice. Sure, it was no tower, but it was still probably the third largest building he'd ever been inside. His door was still hanging open with his comfy blue sheets in sight. The idea of forgetting all of this and going back to sleep was appealing, but then his head pounded especially hard for one beat, and—oh! He could ask FRIDAY for guidance to speed things up.

He got through a whispered, "Hey, FRI—" before he thought better of the idea and cut himself off.

Right. He shouldn't talk to FRIDAY out here, should he? He could whisper, but the sound of her response might wake one of the Avengers, which he'd very much like to avoid. He had a feeling most of Captain America's side hadn't yet forgiven him for unintentionally but spectacularly derailing that last get-together. He wondered if tonight's party went any better. It had barely started before he was dragged out of it, so he had next to no idea. No yelling match had filtered up to him, but he _did_ tend to pass out and stay out most nights regardless of his environment.

Tired of the lack of progress made by simply standing there—and honestly, tired in general—he made his way toward the elevator so he could begin his sweep around the most likely areas.

He never even made it that far. He wandered toward the elevator seemingly endlessly, but that wasn't right, was it? He stayed over here often enough, and he couldn't remember a time where the walk from his room to the central elevator took longer than a minute flat. More than a minute seemed to trickle by as he inched his way past the dark, silent bedrooms. At some point, the stickiness in his palms didn't cooperate mid-step and his body weakly slapped against the wall with an unexpectedly loud thud before he slid down to the floor with a second, quieter thud. He was full of thuds today.

He shook himself out of a stupor that lasted who knew how long before he finally absorbed the fact that he was sprawled on the floor. He reached his hands back to push himself up only to fall back down after making it to his knees. It wasn't his proudest moment, but at least this could stay between himself and FRIDAY.

But of course it couldn't, because then light was flooding the hallway from one of the bedrooms—man, that didn't mix well with his headache—and there was Captain America somehow managing to look serious even in all of his patriotic pajama-clad glory. Peter hid a smirk, somehow not expecting the American flag-themed outfit even though it made so much sense now that it was in front of him. The amusement faded fast when the airport fight jumped to mind just as suddenly.

"Alright, let's get you back to bed," said actual Captain freaking America to _him_ specifically out of all the people in the world. He'd purposefully fought Captain America, stolen his shield, and yet the man was still being _nice_ to him. How could he have done that to Steve? He was the _worst_. He didn't deserve to even be acknowledged by this literal hero.

Steve was still talking, and he'd been too deep in his own thoughts to let the words sink in. This felt familiar for some reason he couldn't place. Some weird déjà vu or something prickled in his memory.

He should listen to Captain America. Would it be too rude to reveal those PSA videos had inspired a series of memes at school? Yeah, probably. Plus, what if Steve was embarrassed by them or took them seriously and was upset about the jokes? The rest of the team probably didn't even know they existed. It would be hilarious if he showed Tony. Not now, though. It was like… three in the morning now. That was arguably the best time to watch funny videos, imbuing them with the inexplicable everything-is-hilarious vibes that always came with late nights together with friends. He'd never had a late night together with Tony, just with Ned and May and MJ on occasion. Tony enforced a bedtime while he was at the compound—an actual, honest to God _bedtime_ for someone who fought crime on a daily basis. It was laughable, so he laughed aloud.

Captain America leveled him with a confused stare, but he just laughed harder. He'd summoned those everything-is-hilarious three a.m. vibes, and now he couldn't stop his own frantic giggles even as the non-hilarity of the situation tickled at his consciousness. The laughter took on a will of its own, and he couldn't even remember what was so funny as the fit morphed into another bout of coughing interrupted by snorts of amusement while he half-choked on the harsh sounds every so often.

He was still caught in the cycle when Tony snapped open his door and padded into the hallway to join them, and he felt guilty because he was specifically trying not to wake Tony, wasn't he? Yet he couldn't stop. He just giggled and coughed and ached helplessly as his audience watched and discussed something he couldn't hear over all the noise he was making. Right, right. He was getting distracted, but he didn't forget. He shouldn't be making a scene out here. He already woke up two Avengers. It was time to stop.

Except he couldn't. Nothing was funny. He had _no_ reason to laugh, but it wouldn't stop, and it kind of hurt to cycle through laughing and coughing for what must have been several minutes, and now his thoughts were rambling again like he rambled aloud sometimes, but he'd been getting better about that, but clearly not _that_ much better, and now he was coughing so hard he was gagging and _oh_. He shouldn't just stand here uselessly making his weird array of sounds. He didn't want to make a mess on Tony's carpet. He staggered away from the two Avengers while they were talking about whatever it was they were talking about, though he multitasked by wondering why Tony would have carpet in a building occupied by a group of people who probably routinely made huge post-battle messes in their prime.

That train of thought was thrown to the wayside when he gagged again and his focus was better reapplied to finding somewhere, anywhere to go to spare Tony a ruined carpet. Muted sounds of surprise followed behind him as Tony or Steve apparently noticed his great escape. _Please don't follow_ , he mentally begged. He'd already thrown up in front of Tony once tonight, or did he imagine that? Was that another time? Was that Tony? It felt like it was maybe recent, but—he was doing it again. Thought rambling was really very distracting.

His stumbling search turned out fruitless as he couldn't stop himself from bringing up a bitter mouthful of bile onto the carpet he was trying so desperately to save. Seeing that he'd already failed, he gave up on his efforts and shakily sank to his knees on the floor. Tears came unbidden as he continued gagging helplessly, the humorless giggles finally coming under control once they were tempered by the discomfort of actively losing the remnants of his stomach contents in front of two Avengers.

It was _always_ like this with him and Tony, and he was so _tired_ of it. He'd do so well for a decent period of time, well enough that sometimes he even thought he impressed Tony with his work, but then something would wreck the good reputation he'd built. He'd chase after Vulture and get his ass seriously kicked in the process, or he'd track down a crime ring and get caught while he tried to take it down at the source. A couple nights, he let himself get shot, and of course Tony was disappointed in him then; most of the time he was so disappointed that he never showed up to see him while Bruce was patching him up and holding him for observation. It hurt to dwell on the specific moments he'd screwed up, but that's exactly what this was: another disappointment that everyone expected from Peter Parker.

Nausea and self-pity overwhelmed him for some time. When he pulled himself out of it, Tony was squatting at a distance.

"You're a mess, kid. What are you even doing up?"

He'd already started crying at some point and couldn't stop a choked sob despite mentally battling to not embarrass himself even more, but the sound garbled his attempt to say he was looking for medicine and left Tony staring at him confused. Peter didn't try to explain again. Tony didn't take long to get the message that he wasn't talking and levered him up until he was standing again on shaky legs. The man eyed his mess of a suit but stayed close enough to support the bulk of his weight.

He was fully and undeniably out of it after that, so it didn't surprise him that the trip to his room seemed to be over in a flash and left him with next to no memories of moving. He finally got out a request for painkillers without scrambling the message with tears—and man, was that breakdown going to be awkward in the morning—and Steve left presumably to find some while Tony guided Peter out of the suit and into fresh pajamas and his bed. That feeling of déjà vu was there again, like this had happened already, and maybe it had. He didn't feel entirely there and wouldn't put it past his brain to have buried away parts of today. It wouldn't be too unexpected, at least.

Coughing hard again, he heard Tony ask FRIDAY to send Steve back with cough syrup too. He tried to thank the man but the fit didn't completely taper off until after Steve was back at his side, reaching out like he wanted to touch Peter but hesitating. He knew it was just the fever's influence when tears sprung into his eyes again at the idea that Captain America actually cared about him, but it didn't do anything to sway the light feeling that settled somewhere in his chest. It didn't quite overpower the lingering nausea, but hey, it was something.

Even shaky enough to need Tony's support, he got through the medicine routine easily enough, and soon he was lying back as his eyes drifted closed and Tony left his side. The sleepiness the Nyquil brought to his already exhausted body occupied most of his attention, but what was left passively listened for Tony's and Steve's exit. But that never came.

He heard a whispered, "You go ahead," quiet enough that he couldn't distinguish the voice, but neither made a move to leave.

"I can't sleep anyway." The other voice was a little louder and the Brooklyn accent definitely belonged to Steve. "I'd rather stick around if you don't mind."

The room fell into silence, only broken by the blankets shifting slightly every time he shivered especially hard. He'd fallen into the floaty in-between of not quite being awake but not being all the way asleep yet either when the other two must have assumed that he was out and resumed their conversation.

He tried not to pay too much attention to the individual words, knowing that they thought they were having a private conversation, but he couldn't hold back a small smile at hearing them finally getting along and discussing their future as a team.


End file.
